SES and Family Health PDF

# Socio-economic status (SES) and its impacts on family health **Prof Magda Elhadi** ## Socio-economic status (SES) Socio-economic status (SES) is a term used to represent both the social and economic traits of a person or community. ## Impacts on Health Care Utilization (HCU) Research has dem...

# Socio-economic status (SES) and its impacts on family health **Prof Magda Elhadi** ## Socio-economic status (SES) Socio-economic status (SES) is a term used to represent both the social and economic traits of a person or community. ## Impacts on Health Care Utilization (HCU) Research has demonstrated that SES has a significant impact on HCU. - SES has an indirect impact on the need or health status of a community. - SES factors have an important influence on aspects related to an individual's health care, such as: - Recognition and response to symptoms - Knowledge of disease - Motivation to get well - Access or choice of health services ## SES Factors Of the various SES factors used in health research, sex, age, family size, education, and family income consistently show a marked impact on HCU. - **Age:** HCU increases with age. - **Family size:** Family size has a negative effect on HCU. - **Marital status:** Widowed and divorced persons have increased HCU rates. ### Influence of Education Research consistently reports that education is associated with increased HCU. ### Income and its Effects on HCU Many feel that income's main effect is indirect through the increase of a person's or community's health status. - **Direct effects:** The effects of unemployment and divorced marital status - factors that are highly correlated with low income. ### Other SES Factors Ethnicity and race are other SES factors that may have influence on HCU. ## Supportive Social and Physical Environments There are many social barriers that prevent or hinder access to the supportive environments that positively influence health and well-being. - Many groups are without the social supports that couldn’t achieve even a full health potential. ## The Problem of Violence - Violence is a widespread social problem that affects the health and well-being of families, women, children, youth and seniors in all economic, social, geographic, racial and cultural groups. - Women are at higher risk of violence than men, while many children and youth are exposed to violence and abuse within their families. ## Literacy Skills For many, poor literacy skills create barriers to dealing with the simplest of everyday situations. ## Behavioral Abnormalities Behavioral abnormalities to a supportive environment. ## Importance of Support People have the right to live and work in communities where they feel accepted, safe and secure and, without this support, many groups will have difficulty achieving their full health potential. ## Close Association between Mental Disorder and Poor Social Situation There is a close association between mental disorder in children and poor social situation. - Research has found a very close association between teenage pregnancy and social and economic disadvantage. Those with teenage pregnancy are more likely to have poor qualifications. ## Educational Disadvantage Young people with parents in manual occupations are far less likely than others to go to university and only 1 in 6 of students at top universities come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. ## Causes of Social Barriers * Part-time for children * Working women * Poverty * Literacy ## Thank you